Marlborough as Imperial Prince, 1704-1717

Peter Barber

Abstract

EARLY in June 1704, as the campaign that was to culminate in the victory of
Blenheim-Hochstadt was gaining momentum, Johann Wenzel, Count Wratislaw von
Mistrowitz, the Imperial ambassador at the English court, who was accompanying the
Allied armies on their march to the Danube, suggested in a confidential letter to his
master. Emperor Leopold I, that the Duke of Marlborough should be created a prince
of the Holy Roman Empire. In his reply the Emperor agreed it would be 'nothig und
convenient', confessing that he had come to the same conclusion as it had become ever
more likely that the Duke would, with God's help, become the saviour of the Emperor,
the Habsburg dynasty, and indeed the Empire itself from invasion by the French and
their Bavarian allies. Such an honour was the greatest that it was in the Emperor's
power to bestow and, to make it plain it would not be a 'blosse Apparenz', Leopold
instructed Wratislaw to suggest some lands in Germany which could be bestowed on
the Duke as a fief.